


John's Crutch

by LeeMorrigan



Category: The Alienist (TV)
Genre: Bromance, Feelz, Flashbacks, Friendship, Gen, John Moore must be protected at all costs, John Moore needs a hug, John picked a heck of a time to quit drinking, John's nightmares, Laszlo is a good friend, dreaming of helplessness, dreams of drowning, friendship feelz
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-22
Updated: 2018-02-22
Packaged: 2019-03-22 12:00:10
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,133
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13763718
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LeeMorrigan/pseuds/LeeMorrigan
Summary: John Moore is no stranger to loss, and he found his crutch to prop him up when he had to face the world not made for a man who wore his heart on his sleeve. From his brother's death to his train rid with Laszlo, John battles his demons, his desire for drink, and his restless mind, because his friends need him.





	John's Crutch

**Author's Note:**

> I do not own THE ALIENIST or the characters, if I did then Mary would get more screentime and John would smile more.  
> WARNING: If you are uncomfortable with drowning, images of drowning, nightmares about it, or generally have difficulty with unhealthy grieving processes, proceed with caution.  
> Canon-compliant up to ep5, told entirely from John's perspective, and takes place mostly during the train ride back from visiting the penitentiary.   
> Thank you for reading, enjoy!

New York City was damp, dark, covered in a thick layer of grime, with sharp angles and sharper faces. Grayscale and charcoal. John remembered, in childhood, going sailing. Clear water like liquid, playful glass. Shimmering blue, grey, black, and green. It was beautiful. Peaceful. He felt he could breathe deeper, as if his mind calmed all on its own, when he was on the water.

Then, his brother stopped by his home, inviting him to go sailing. He had been drunk when he arrived, slurring his words slightly with a cab waiting for him at the curb side, the drive obviously paid well enough to not care how long this stop was taking his passenger. Looking back, John wished he had doubled it to have the driver take his brother home.

“It will be just as when we were children!”, he had explained.

John had let out a long-suffering sigh, well-accustomed to his brother’s strange turns when he had imbibed far too well. Briefly, John had considered it. He was his brother’s keeper, by that point. Most others had washed their hands of the drunken ne’er-do-well.

“No. I won’t go with you. I’ve an early appointment tomorrow and I do not wish to arrive tardy, smelling of booze and fish.”

Hs brother had scrunched his face at John, swaying on his feet as he turned to face the open doorway. Taking an unsteady step, he called back, “You’ll regret it, Johnny-boy! You’re missing a fine trip!”

John had just stood there, shaking his head. He didn’t even move to shut the door behind his brother, until the man was secured in his cab below. Had he meant to torture his brother with the tantalizing image of the door hanging open? Had he been too tired of the drunken insanity, and it caused him to drag his feet over to close the door? Or, perhaps, he had known in his marrow that something terrible had been on the horizon?

No matter the reason, he had waited to close the door. His final image of his beloved brother, the cab carrying him away to where he would meet a friend and talk the younger man into going sailing with him. Both were too drunk to handle a cane, let alone a ship. The younger man, Roger, had come home looking haunted and wild and never did sail again. In fact, to John’s knowledge, the young man had not gone near a dock, port, harbor, pool, ocean, or lake again.

Their grandmother, ever the pillar of the family, had fallen to the ground silently. John had feared a heart attack or some sort of stroke, when her legs buckled beneath her like a collapsed accordion. He had rushed to her side, scooping her up and taking her to her bed, where she stayed for three straight weeks. John’s only comfort had been Laszlo, and Theodore, to a lesser extent.

Laszlo, uncharacteristically attuned to the world outside his school, had rushed over. John still was not sure how his friend so quickly learned of the accident. No matter the how of it, the information had sent Laszlo rushing to John’s home. The maid let him up and he came, suddenly struck dumb and still. He lingered in the hall, the door to John’s room hanging open.

“Laszlo?”, he had asked when he turned to see his friend. He had been so confused, his mind so muddled, that he briefly considered that Laszlo was a phantom conjured by his mind. Laszlo had stepped forward, finding his voice.

“Yes, John. I heard about your brother.”

John had nodded, then reached to refill his drink. The maid, Virginia, had brought him some coffee with a bit of whiskey added to it. She had claimed, in a very quiet voice meant to keep his grandmother’s ears from catching her words, that her own father and grandfather drank that when they were upset and shocked.

Laszlo then moved to sit on the edge of the bed, his right shoulder just inches from John’s side, staring directly ahead, his posture rigid. John had looked over at his friend and thought of gargoyles and grotesques, standing guard over holy buildings in Europe. Stern, frightening faces, hard lines, disproportioned limbs, and fierce. The thought flickered through his grief-addled mind, that Laszlo would have a great deal of joy in dissecting these odd thoughts and comparisons in John’s mind.

“May I get you something?”

John shook his head.

“Would you prefer to stay at my house? Away from…”

“My grandmother will need me.”

Laszlo nodded. The silence dragged out. John thought he might have fallen asleep, sitting up. The world had become a bit blurry, the colors bleeding into each other. A mess of grey, green, white, and dark brown. The dark wooden floor and furnishings to match, white doilies and lace atop his end table, his green reading chair, the grey sky barely shining through the window.

A deep breath. Maybe his, maybe Laszlo. Then a cool, leather-clad hand resting between John’s shoulders. They sat like that, as if two statues in the park. John tried to think of what his grandmother would need, the arrangements that would have to be attended to, and even of alerting his father. The thoughts were too heavy, too desirous for his full attention.

When Laszlo spoke again, John was pulled from his haze to see the sun had fully set and, at some point, Virginia had come to light a lamp in his room. The light was just enough for him to see Laszlo had never removed his coat or gloves, his cane held in his right hand, and his left still resting on John’s back. He felt like a child. As if he were one of those lost, tragic young souls at Laszlo’s school.

“John, you must have something to eat. You will need to keep your strength up if you are to help your grandmother.”

He could not argue against this, and he agreed with a nod. Laszlo had guided him to stand and they went down to the dining room. Virginia, bless the woman, had brought in some stew and hot tea. John had not realized how cold he had gotten upstairs in his somewhat drafty room. The stew required little effort to consume and, for once, Laszlo did not attempt conversation. He permitted John the space and peace to sort out his mind.

That night, John had been plagued with nightmares. In some, he heard a knock at his door, answering to find his brother standing there. He was pale and bloated, like those poor souls pulled from the watery grave they drowned in. His eyes were ghostly pale and water gushed from his lips as he cried out for John. Begging John to jump, to save him, to pull him back to the boat.

Others had involved his other loved-ones, Laszlo, his fiancé, his grandmother, and a couple other friends. He dreamed of being at sea with his brother and father, years ago, only for the boat to go silent. He would get up from his seat with his rod for fishing, walking to find his father and brother floating dead in the water. And he had dreamed that it was he who drowned, his brother left to pick up the pieces and comfort their grandmother.

Each nightmare sent him flying forward in his bed, sweat pouring down his chest to soak his nightshirt and bed linens, his breath coming in gasps, and the butler, Henry, rushing up to check on him. Again, he felt like a child. Henry had not needed to check on John in the night, since he was a small boy. He assured Henry that it had been a simple nightmare each time, nothing to worry about or do anything for.

For several weeks, he would have nightmares more often than not, waking in a panic. Sometimes he felt he was the one drowning. The water clawing its way down his throat, cutting off his lungs as he tried to scream for help, his chest on fire and constricting more and more tightly against his lungs, his nose and mouth burning from the water pouring down into him. He thrashed and fought, unable to save himself.

It was during those weeks that he learned how useful the alcohol could be. Alcohol was used by physicians to treat pain and John found that it dulled the ache in his chest and permitted him to have blessed dreamless sleep. A blackness that overcame him when he laid in his bed and pulled from him with the dawn. Back then, his grandmother said nothing about his sudden great thirst. From the number of times she had been slurring a little at the breakfast table and the introduction of a bottle tucked away in her skirts, John assumed she had found the same crutch.

Ever since, he had treated his pain with alcohol. At first, it had been just the pain of losing his brother and facing the world, to tell everyone from their neighbors to their father, of the death. Then it was to handle his fiancé leaving him, after betraying him so publicly. Soon, he treated every wound, no matter how insignificant, with the same remedy. Laszlo had not commented, at first. Perhaps allowing John a chance to figure out for himself, that this was no solution.

When Laszlo called him to the bridge, and he saw that poor, mutilated child, John had wanted to dive into the deepest bottle of the strongest liquor he could acquire. He wished to blot it out as one might remove etching with acid. Then he had to return to Laszlo’s home and cast his mind back to the bridge, recalling every detail for Laszlo’s mind to decipher. Laszlo offered him a drink, far too watered down for John’s liking, yet he still downed it.

The next scene did nothing to help matters. Nor did seeing Sara again, dealing with the Isaacson brothers and their autopsies, or meeting those poor, degraded children at the brothel. The events he could barely remember and had borne bruises from days after, had left him emptying every hidden bottle in his home. His grandmother disapproved loudly, Virginia quietly acquired more bottles and discreetly placed them in John’s room when she brought up his clean bed linens, and the wait staff at all his familiar haunts would bring him strong drinks without his bidding them to do so. He must have had the look about him of a man in need of the escape, the numbness.

Sara had joked, “If I thought you had a sincere bone in your body, I _might_ consider it.”, and it cut deeply. He swore if he had looked down, you might have seen red blossoming from his clean white shirt. Bright crimson against all the grey of the street and the black of the cabs. Not like Sara’s eyes, bright and blue, wide like a child’s yet with a depth that made her seem as if she had lived 100 lifetimes. Then again, she had never been a stranger to tragedy.

He had followed her, suddenly desperate for her answer. It was not a secret that he adored her. Laszlo had commented on this a while ago, his own grandmother made her inquiries of why he spent so much time with Ms.Howard, and he had tried to show his affections with a chaste kiss, pressed to her cheek.

His attempts, thus far, had been disastrous. Then, with a small joke meant to knock her from her blustering fury at Laszlo bullying her, he had gotten a full smile. She had teased back. Though he teasing hurt, seeing her smile and hearing her laugh had been worth it. To see the sparkle in those azure eyes, a rosy flush coming to her cheeks, her golden hair all contrasting so sharply against all the grey, brown, and black about her. He itched to draw her.

She had insinuated he could stop his drinking with some will-power. He did not care to make an issue of it, yet he desired to be better. And not just for Sara, to elevate her opinion of him. Or of getting the same from his grandmother. He worried that Laszlo had been right. That this monster they sought, might direct his violent mind towards them.

And now, seeing how close Lazslo was willing to get to that deranged madman in order to comfort him when the man faked a crying spell to lure Laszlo in, John was sure that his friend needed John. He needed John clear-headed, able to spot what Laszlo would miss, to protect Laszlo from the greatest danger the man faced- his own willingness to run blindly forward into danger, seeking answers or to help someone. Laszlo, for all his professed troubles with getting along with those around him and his constantly pushing away those who cared for him, the man was a champion of those pushed away, forgotten, unloved.

And Sara, while able to handle herself far better than any gave her credit for, would likely need much the same from John. The Isaacsons were also as dedicated as Laszlo and Sara, albeit for different reasons, and they were far too wide-eyed and unworldly. John worried for them all, and if he was not the brilliant alienist that Laszlo was, the detective Sara was proving to be, or the scientific minds the Isaacson brothers were, he could perhaps be the watchdog. The one who watched their backs and was ready to pull them from in front of the oncoming train when they were too focused to see or hear it bearing down upon them.

However, his sudden return to sobriety had permitted his demons, long shoved into a box and left drowning in booze, to spring forth. In the daylight, with the sun bathing the world in yellow warmth, he could battle them back well enough. And in the evening, with conversation or his easel, pencil or charcoal, and a fresh canvas or paper, he could hold them at bay. It was only when he slept, without his crutch, that they were able to attack in full force. His mind pulling out the old tortures.

Sitting across from Laszlo, the gentle rocking of the train and the soft lights, he had been lured to sleep without realizing it. Then he saw him, his brother, clawing the water’s surface. Begging, pleading with John, the water swallowing him as he reached for John. John had been helpless, reaching and yet not getting any closer to grasping his brother’s hands. Then a girl, her face like their latest victim before his paint and other feminine coverings had been removed. Another face of another person John could not save.

He woke with a start, temporarily disoriented. Red, black, and gold swirled in his vision. Straight lines, soft cushions against his back, something hard pressed against his shoulder, and two dark, brown eyes boring into him. One of these days, he was going to remind Laszlo that he was not that damn bird.

When he straightened and began to drink the fresh cup of tea brought to him, Laszlo did not ask of his dream nor did he comment on the slight shaking of John’s hands. Either Laszlo was so well acquainted with a drunk in their first days after swearing off the drink, or he was taking John’s feelings into account and not pestering John to unburden himself. Or, perhaps after poking and prodding John’s mind and the scars on his heart these past days, Laszlo felt John was entitled to one night of peace.

“Has this sudden attack of sobriety anything to do with Miss Howard’s comments about you’re being a drunken indolent?”

John sighed. So much for Laszlo having been in a merciful mood.

“No, actually.”

Lazlo’s face showed the man did not believe John at all. He clearly believed it was purely about getting Sara to improve her opinion of John. On a good day, he might have admitted that was part of the reason. This was not, however, a good day.

“If you are right and this… monster, points that violent mind in our direction, if he is to stalk us and toy with us, then we will all need to keep our wits about us. We will need to stay sharp, vigilant. I cannot do that if I am half-drunk.”

“And the nightmares? How will you function with the lack of sleep?”

“I will endure it well enough. After this trip, I feel I may sleep for five days straight.”

Laszlo smiled slightly, then turned his head to look out the window. John returned to his tea, finishing the cup before moving to his small bag. It held his papers and pencil so he might sketch. The picture would be rough, with the bumping of the train and the shaking of John’s hands, yet it would distract him enough that he would not fidget. For the rest of the trip, Laszlo remained silent and John sketched.

As they pulled into the station, Laszlo caught a glimpse of John’s sketches before John had stowed the book back in his bag. Flowers, a rosary like the one John’s mother carried, a carriage with fine details and fringe, a broad horse, and an ornate comb. These would mean nothing to Laszlo, and to John they each meant something only he would understand.

“It is good to see you sketching for your own enjoyment. You had sketched for newspapers, a parlor trick, or my investigations. I have not seen you enjoy your art in quite some time.”

John stopped, stunned. He did not move until Laszlo stood and began walking out of the car they were in. Hurrying, John followed after Lazlo. His friend had been right, John had not drawn simply to enjoy it, for so long that he could not recall the last time he entertained himself with his sketches. Perhaps this was another benefit to dropping the crutch and standing on his own two, wobbly feet.

No matter though, he would hold to his vow and remain clear-headed. Laszlo needed him, Roosevelt was depending on them, Sara needed him, and the Isaacsons needed him to be of a clear mind. If they were distracted worrying about or looking after him, and they were to come to harm because of it, he would never forgive himself. And if he failed them, if his drunkenness caused him to be too slow to reach out and save any one of them, he could not forgive himself for it. He needed to have his full faculties if he was to be of use in this investigation, and to his friends.


End file.
